The Fall of the Land of Whirlpools, Conspiracy Theories Confirmed

Konoha Year 33, April 1.

The Ninja Academy began another new school year. The graduating sixth-graders and the promoted first-years had vacated their classrooms, sending off familiar faces and welcoming a batch of strangers.

Before anyone realized it, the Crown Prince of Konoha had gone from a new student to a graduate.

Come March of next year, this grandson of the Hokage, who bore the glory of the Senju and attracted so much attention, would become a full-fledged ninja.

Gojo Yoru, now a fourth-year student, kept a close eye on this grandson of the Hokage.

The reason he paid so much attention to Nawaki was that the boy represented an anchor point!

This younger brother of Tsunade, the direct grandson of the First Hokage, had a lifespan of twelve years.

And the period of his death was the Second Shinobi World War.

That meant, if no butterfly storm appeared, then when Nawaki turned twelve, that would be the outbreak of the Second Shinobi World War.

In other words... Konoha Year 35!

Gojo Yoru had two years, at most three, to develop.

Once Konoha's combat power ran thin, his entire class could be sent to the battlefield at any time.

Under special circumstances, they—mere genin—might be led by jonin or chunin to participate in battles like the Kannabi Bridge Incident of the Third Shinobi World War.

They could encounter enemies at the chunin or jonin level at any moment!

Before the Second Shinobi World War broke out, Gojo Yoru absolutely had to possess the strength to handle those hypothetical scenarios and hypothetical enemies.

He walked into the school with his hands in his pockets. Except for the first-year newcomers, the academy students still stopped and stepped aside as they had back then, not even daring to meet Gojo Yoru's eyes, afraid of provoking the infamous big demon king.

But no one knew that this big demon king was just a Shadow Clone.

As early as last year, aside from practical combat classes, Gojo Yoru's real body had never come to the Ninja Academy.

If it weren't for the possibility of being matched against Namikaze Minato—whose Shadow Clone would get beaten to a pulp, exposing his true strength—Gojo Yoru wouldn't even bother coming to the academy at all.

May 17.

A piece of news shook the entire shinobi world.

The Uzumaki Clan—distant blood relatives of the Senju Clan who had stood unshaken for a thousand years since the Warring States Period, whose Fuinjutsu terrified the ninja world, and who had been the Senju's right-hand force—along with the Land of Whirlpools and the Hidden Whirlpool Village they had established overseas, had been annihilated!

The Land of Fire, an ally of the Land of Whirlpools, didn't even have time to react.

Because the ones who invaded the Land of Whirlpools were not the small overseas nations nearby, nor the small countries on the shinobi continent, but the Four Great Nations excluding the Land of Fire.

Unlike Konoha, which was formed from the great ninja clans of the Warring States Period, the Land of Whirlpools consisted only of Uzumaki Clan members and some foreign immigrants.

They didn't have the strength to fight four enemies at once.

Facing the siege of the Four Great Hidden Villages, they had no power to resist.

Everyone on the island—whether Uzumaki Clan or foreigner—was mercilessly slaughtered. Their bodies were either burned and buried by ninjutsu or packed up and taken away for research.

The survivors were few and far between.

Those who managed to escape were the female clan members who had married outside and already abandoned their original surnames.

But fortunately, as an ally of the Hidden Whirlpool Village, Konoha had always stationed ninja there.

At the earnest request of the Hidden Whirlpool Village's higher-ups, Konoha ninja took away the hope of the Uzumaki Clan and escorted them back to Konoha.

By the time Konoha's reinforcements arrived in the Land of Whirlpools, the massacre was already over. That island was a mess, corpses strewn everywhere.

When this news reached Konoha, no one knew what the higher-ups' reaction was.

However, Gojo Yoru noticed that recently, it was hard to see ninja in green vests on the streets.

Aside from the night patrol ninja, he rarely saw afterimages flashing across the rooftops either.

Clearly, these high-level ninja had all been dispatched.

As for what they were going out to do, Gojo Yoru didn't know, but he could guess.

Either they were carrying out certain missions, or they were guarding the borders.

The annihilation of the Land of Whirlpools was like a countdown to war.

The Four Great Nations, which had been bleeding small countries dry and expanding their territory, had now obtained the Uzumaki Clan's thousand-year legacy. Their strength had skyrocketed, and they certainly wouldn't stop there—they would only intensify.

It only needed a spark to ignite the entire shinobi world.

As the Uzumaki Clan turned to dust in history, the person Gojo Yoru had been waiting for years finally arrived in Konoha.

Starting the next day, whether for academic classes or practical combat, Gojo Yoru came to the Ninja Academy in person, waiting for that figure to appear.

And so he waited all the way until the second semester—September.

Clearly, the destruction of the Land of Whirlpools had hit Uzumaki Kushina too hard.

If it weren't for the comfort of the legendary clansman Uzumaki Mito, Kushina might have "fallen to darkness" like Uchiha Sasuke, living every day in hatred and turning into an avenger.

But the simple-minded Uzumaki Kushina didn't realize she was being brainwashed with "love," treated as a vessel by the village's higher-ups.

If no one pulled her from the sea of flames, then once her pillar of support, Uzumaki Mito, passed away, her future life would be spent under surveillance.

Her range of activity would be permanently locked to a designated area, and unless the village faced a crisis requiring the power of a Jinchuriki, Uzumaki Kushina would never be allowed to leave Konoha.

"Tsk... so it really is a conspiracy theory after all. Politicians' hearts are truly black."

On top of the Hokage Rock, Gojo Yoru sat at the cliff's edge, gazing down at the beautiful village below, his eyes brimming with mockery.

In that moment, Gojo Yoru finally understood the Jinchuriki's state of mind.

No wonder those Jinchuriki were all psychologically twisted—even the Five Kage's own brother couldn't integrate into the village.

The truth was, the methods of these ninja village higher-ups were far too extreme; anyone would feel disheartened.

Gojo Yoru had been curious why Konoha at this time didn't have the barrier from later eras, assuming it hadn't been acquired or developed yet.

But he never expected that Konoha's barrier was actually born because of Uzumaki Kushina!

Though it hadn't yet enveloped the entire village, Gojo Yoru, who frequently used Space-Time Ninjutsu to tunnel out of Konoha, now saw with his own eyes—like the Hyuga Clan's Byakugan—a swirling barrier covering the entire Central Street of Konoha.

This barrier was no stranger to Gojo Yoru; it was exactly the one from the Minato Chronicles, used by Konoha to monitor Uzumaki Kushina.

He hadn't anticipated it appearing so soon.

That was why Gojo Yoru sighed like this.

The original work's chapter where Uzumaki Kushina was saved by Namikaze Minato in a heroic rescue had always been criticized, plagued by conspiracy theories.

The reason was that Uzumaki Kushina, as the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, was so easily kidnapped by Cloud Ninja, who then walked all the way to the border.

Throughout the entire process, the large mansion had not a single person in it. The Cloud Ninja precisely located Uzumaki Kushina, left without being spotted by patrol ninja, and no Anbu monitored or protected the already-sealed Jinchuriki. Konoha seemed to have no barrier either. Only Namikaze Minato, who happened to be wandering outside that night, chased after them based on the clues Uzumaki Kushina left behind.

The rescued Uzumaki Kushina finally formed a bond with Konoha, willing to live in this village.

Now it seemed, this was indeed a setup by the higher-ups.

And this method was exactly the same as when Sarutobi Hiruzen used Mizuki to set up a scheme at the start of the story, deepening the bond between Umino Iruka and Uzumaki Naruto.

Clearly, the mastermind behind the scenes was none other than the Third Hokage.

This discovery, while ironic to Gojo Yoru, also put him completely at ease.

Namikaze Minato became a pawn in that scheme because of his affection for Uzumaki Kushina, his immense talent, and his status as Jiraiya's disciple.

Now, having secured investment from Orochimaru and possessing equally formidable talent, Gojo Yoru also qualified to become such a pawn.

Add in a few years of groundwork, deliberately crafting an unsociable persona, and if Gojo Yoru and Uzumaki Kushina developed mutual feelings, it would be equivalent to mutual salvation—Sarutobi Hiruzen would surely welcome it.

"Solid. Now it's showtime." Gojo Yoru's lips curled slightly, then he rose and vanished with a Body Flicker.